Snowed in with Mr. Heartbreaker (Copper Valley Bro Code #5)

Chapter 1

1

Cash Rivers, aka a movie star who cannot get this ray of sunshine out of his head

The last time I was at a holiday party this awful, a loose pet tiger, a malfunctioning smart home system, and undercooked chicken were involved.

On a private island.

With auto-locking doors that left me trapped with the pet tiger and an upset stomach in a room rapidly chilling to below freezing.

Not exactly where a kid who grew up in a middle-class family in a city near the Blue Ridge mountains in southern Virginia ever would’ve expected to find himself, but life’s interesting sometimes. One day, you’re a normal kid goofing off and making a music video with your buddies to post on YouTube for fun. The next, you’re in a world-famous boy band. Then those boy band days are over, you move to Hollywood, and you’re getting invited to places only the richest of the rich and most famous of the famous hang out.

This party, however, is awful for a different reason.

And possibly far more interesting.

In the bad way.

“I’ll bite,” Davis Remington, my childhood friend and former boy band buddy from our Bro Code days, says over a bottle of holiday kombucha. We’re lingering in one corner of the living room of our friend Beck’s weekend mountain mansion, which looks like it was decorated by an overzealous tipsy elf.

“What’s with the grumpy face?” he asks.

“I’m not grumpy . I’m thoughtful .”

He slides a look at me and smirks.

With his brown man bun, thick beard, and tattoos, he’s more often mistaken for an underfed, lost lumberjack than he is for anything else.

“Thoughtfully staring at your pool house tenant,” he says.

Asshole’s not wrong.

I’m very much staring at my pool house tenant.

I would’ve thought being all the way across the country from my house in Malibu and its accompanying pool house that Aspen Bowen has rented out for the past year would mean I wouldn’t have to see her.

Think about her.

Hear her.

Watch her.

Feel like a creepy old dude who needs to get my shit together and quit obsessing over a woman who’s fifteen years younger than I am.

“She’s blocking the dart board,” I tell Davis.

He keeps staring at me.

Doesn’t have to say a word.

I know what he’s thinking.

Whole damn game room with another dart board in the basement .

“So ask her to move,” he says.

There are roughly a dozen people between Aspen and me. All of them are my family, or they’re friends close enough to be considered family. People I don’t see often enough. I should be chatting with more of them instead of hiding in the corner with Davis.

But I’m not merely hiding in a corner with Davis. I’m hiding in the corner so I can watch Aspen. She’s a rising pop star, invited to our annual hometown get-together by virtue of being tight with Waverly Sweet, girlfriend of Fireballs’ second baseman and future baseball hall-of-famer Cooper Rock, who’s always invited because he lives next door to Beck and all of us are rabid, lifelong Fireballs fans.

“Don’t want it that bad,” I lie.

I want her .

I want her bad.

“Uh-huh,” he says as Aspen’s laughter carries across the living room, over Elvis’s “Blue Christmas,” accompanied by the scents of cinnamon and ginger from the cookies the kids and grandmas are baking in the kitchen.

The multicolored lights strung around the window illuminate Aspen’s soft brown hair, and my cock twitches every time she takes a drink of her mug of spiced cider then follows it with a lick of her lips.

“You remember the time you wouldn’t let anyone else touch the blue darts and you convinced Tripp you’d swallowed them so the rest of us couldn’t have them?” I say to Davis.

He almost grins. Almost, but not quite. “Wasn’t as hard as it should’ve been.”

“We should take a road trip together. Get another tour bus. Pack up all five of us. See the country. Recreate the fun, but do it where we can stop and see shit.”

He takes a swig of his beer. “No.”

“We can get a bus with two bathrooms instead of just one. I know you like your own bathroom.”

He slides me another look. “Or you deal with your real problem and quit trying to pick fights to avoid thinking about it.”

“Life’s great. No problems here.”

He looks Aspen’s way as she squeals “Commander Crumpet!” loudly enough for half the house to hear.

I don’t have to look to know who Commander Crumpet is.

I helped her find Commander Crumpet a new home when she texted me around the first of the year, asking if I’d be around while she was gone on her first big road trip. She needed a babysitter for her pet hedgehog. Little beastie didn’t do well on car rides, she said, but he was very well-behaved when he was at home.

Timing didn’t work, but it was obvious she was going to have a bigger problem than needing a temporary babysitter for her carsick-prone hedgehog soon.

She didn’t realize it—or maybe she was in denial—but I saw the writing on the wall.

Between Aspen’s inherent talent and then her endorsement from Waverly, she was on track to being home less and less often because she’d be more and more in demand around the country.

But now Commander Crumpet lives with my buddy Levi, his wife, and their kids. Considering their first family pet was a squirrel, Commander Crumpet has been much easier on all of them.

And he’s spoiled as hell.

“Aww, how’s my sweet baby?” Aspen croons at the little creature. “You look so happy.”

Shit.

I know that catch in her voice.

I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t have spent nearly enough time with her to know that catch in her voice. Especially since our schedules mean we’re rarely in California at the same time, much less in the same city.

But it doesn’t take long to catch an obsession.

“You wanna go downstairs and—” I start, turning to Davis, but he’s not there anymore.

Shit .

I’ve been staring at Aspen so long that I didn’t even notice Davis left me to look like a solo creeper in the corner.

Fuck this.

I might be too old for her, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be polite. I drop my empty beer bottle in Beck’s recycling bin, then head across the room, making small talk with my siblings and friends and their older kids on the way.

And eventually, I reach Aspen.

She’s chatting animatedly with Zoe, Levi’s oldest stepdaughter and primary caregiver for Commander Crumpet. I nod to the hedgehog in Zoe’s hands.

“Has he been good enough for Santa to bring him presents this year?”

Zoe rolls her eyes as only a preteen can. “He’s a hedgehog, Uncle Cash.”

Aspen looks up at me. She’s maybe five-six. Brown hair tied up in a ponytail that I’d like to—ahem. Dressed in all black. Hazel eyes dancing.

“He gets presents all year round, don’t you, Commander Crumpet?”

The hedgehog doesn’t answer, but he does sniff at her.

“Such a good boy,” she says.

“He’s the best,” Zoe agrees.

“Does he still like to sleep in socks?” I ask.

“How do you know how he likes to sleep?” Zoe asks as Aspen glances at me again.

Fuck me, she’s pretty.

And fifteen years younger than you, you dirty old man .

I tilt my head toward her as I answer Zoe. “Aspen told me.”

“You forgot Hudson’s name the last time you were in town, but you remember how a hedgehog likes to sleep?”

Not my best moment, and I have a feeling she won’t ever let me forget that I forgot her little brother’s name. “I was jetlagged, and I’d spent the past three months working on Hollow and Hunter . With Judson Clarke.”

“So what did you call Hudson?” Aspen asked me.

I clear my throat. “Juntson.”

She grins, and it makes the twinkling holiday lights seem brighter, the baking cookie scent more delicious, and the entire holiday season more magical.

“That must’ve been some epic jetlag.”

“Shot the whole film in Australia.”

“Oh, I’ve never been to Australia! Is it pretty?”

“Yeah. Very pretty. The whole country. I’ll take you next time I go.”

I realize what I’ve just said—and implied—and freeze in my tracks like I’m seventeen with my first crush instead of nearly forty with an inappropriate crush.

Zoe looks at me.

Then at Aspen.

Then pointedly back at me. Do not be an old creeper with my second-favorite pop star, Uncle Cash, or I will tell my stepdad to destroy you .

Was I this observant when I was in middle school?

She’s still in middle school, isn’t she?

“She’s busy,” Zoe deadpans.

“Hey, Zo, Waverly’s looking for you,” Levi calls across the room.

And there goes Zoe.

Not even a goodbye.

Just a high-shrieked squeak accompanied by, “Waverly’s finally here?” and she’s gone, taking the hedgehog with her.

“Hope you didn’t want to see Waverly too,” I joke to Aspen.

“We hung out earlier. And I’ll see her again tomorrow.”

We stare at each other.

Say something normal. Say something normal. Say something normal . “So your Christmas song is killing it.”

The Christmas song she just released is going absolutely bananas. It’s trending on every chart a song can trend on. You can’t open a social media app without the first ten videos you see all using parts of the song. I was in New York last week, and the billboard in Times Square was playing parts of the video every time I looked at it from my hotel room.

She shrugs. “Yeah.”

Clearly not the right thing to say, though I don’t know why. “You’re doing Christmas with Cooper and Waverly?”

“Uh-huh.”

Something’s off.

Not that I know her well—we’ve only been in Malibu together at the same time maybe a month total—but now that it’s just the two of us, things are weird.

I should leave her alone.

I should.

“You play darts?” I ask instead.

She glances at the board. “The last time I threw something at a wall, you had to get your roof fixed.”

Not wrong, but it wasn’t her fault. She was bouncing a rubber ball against the wall while working on some lyrics, and the ball went through the drywall. It had been quietly rotting for months due to a leak that wasn’t obvious.

Not saying I made a big deal about sticking true to my humble roots and helping patch the wall when the contractors came by to work on it, but I’m not saying I didn’t either.

I pluck the darts off the board and separate them to hand her the green darts. “Wanna see if Beck’s walls have structural damage?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You’d be doing him a favor. He’s not out here often, so it’d be good for him to know if he has problems with his walls.”

I get a half smile, and once again, I tell myself I should retreat.

I’m not blocking her in the corner, but I am her landlord.

And I know she had a lot of trouble with landlords before she moved in to my pool house.

Does she think I’m trying to hit on her and she has to tolerate it or find a new place to live?

I’m about to step back and let her go, but she reaches out and accepts the darts. “Okay, but if this goes through the wall and lands outside, you’re telling Beck it was your idea.”

“Deal. You know the rules?”

“Hit the dart board and don’t put it through the wall.” She’s completely straight-faced.

It’s fucking adorable.

I gesture to the board. “Ladies first.”

“Am I back far enough?”

“Yep.”

Not even close.

But if we back up much farther, we’ll trip over other people.

She takes aim and lets the dart fly, and it thunk s off the wall to the left of the target.

“That’s seven points for creativity,” I tell her.

Bad idea.

Bad, bad idea.

My joke makes her purse those curvy lips as she suppresses a smile, and it’s hot as hell.

Stop it , I order myself as she takes aim with her second dart.

It misses.

So does her third dart.

“Forty-eight points for consistency,” I say.

She cocks her hip to one side and gives me the look I’ve come to think of as her this old weirdo has no chance with me look. “I can handle losing.”

“Who says you’re losing? Maybe it’s less about hitting the bull’s-eye and more about seeing who can be most creative.” I toss my first dart and miss on the other side.

On purpose. Of course I can hit a dart board.

“Four points,” she says. “It would’ve been ten, but your dart didn’t have a good dismount off the wall.”

“Huh.” I aim my second dart, which hits the frame then flips a few times on its way back at us. It lands at Aspen’s feet, stuck in the rug.

She looks at the dart, then up at me. “Did you do that on purpose?”

“Aw, you think I have mad dart skills.”

“Do it again.”

If she were one of my brothers or my sister or my friends from childhood and we were playing a made-up point game, I’d demand she tell me how many points I got first.

But I don’t really care how many points this is worth in the game.

Not when I can show off my skills while she’s half smiling, half suspicious.

“Hard shot,” I tell her. “I’m not very good.”

God, she’s pretty when her eyes sparkle like that. “Throw the dart, Cash.”

Know the last time a woman made me nervous?

Probably my ill-advised, ten-day-long marriage back in the height of my Bro Code days.

When I was about Aspen’s age.

But I’m squinting in concentration as I aim for the dart board, looking for the same spot that I hit a moment ago.

I let the dart go, and yesssss .

It bounces off the frame again, flips in the air, and while it doesn’t land quite at Aspen’s feet this time, she still claps her hands and throws her head back with a laugh. “You did not just do—oh, fuuuu—crap.”

She’s staring at the ceiling.

I glance up too.

Hear a snicker behind me that could’ve come from any of my siblings or buddies or their siblings.

“Huh.” My pulse ticks higher. I stretch my fingers out and close them into a fist in my suddenly clammy hands. Have to swallow against the sudden dry mouth.

We’re standing under a massive ball of mistletoe.

It’s not the only mistletoe in the room either.

See again, this place was decorated by an inebriated elf.

But it’s the mistletoe that we’re standing under.

Levi’s kissing his wife under another ball of mistletoe by the stairs. Beck just snagged Sarah beneath some mistletoe in the corner I was just standing in with Davis.

“Mistletoe time!” my sister crows.

Fuck .

The kissing has to be done.

I swallow again and look down at Aspen.

She’s staring at me. But is she staring at me like there are rules, and then there are rules , and this rule of kissing someone under the mistletoe must be obeyed regardless of who you’re standing there with? Or is she staring at me like this dude better not try anything ?

Not just my pulse inching higher now.

My dick is as well.

Her eyes dip to my lips.

I tell my cock she’s staring at my nose and contemplating logistics. Kinda known for having a big schnoz.

My cock—and my brain—don’t believe me.

She’s staring at my mouth.

Her eyes dart back to mine. She bites her plump lower lip.

“There’s—” My voice cracks. I clear my throat and try again. “There’s this thing here where if you don’t play by the rules, you’re in danger of being the target of pranks for the next year.”

“Huh.”

That’s it.

That’s all she says.

Just huh .

Her gaze shifts from my mouth to my eyes, then back to my mouth.

I swallow again.

“I have seen what Cooper can do,” she murmurs.

One time.

I can kiss this woman one time , using mistletoe as an excuse, and then I’m buying a new house in LA to stay at when I’m in California and moving on from this crush.

So she can keep renting my pool house as long as she wants.

And I won’t go fix anything that’s wrong myself the next time something breaks. I’ll have my people handle it for me.

Yep.

One kiss.

That’s all.

I angle my body toward hers, hyper-aware of the way her eyes dilate, her sharp but soft inhalation as her gaze dips to my mouth again, her lips parting.

My hand settles on her waist as the sound of her viral Christmas song fills the room.

I start to smile, but Aspen?—

She jerks back.

Completely closed up.

No more smiles. No more curiosity. No more anything .

“Fun game,” she says. “Thanks.”

And then she’s gone, dashing through the crowd of my family and best friends, disappearing down the steps to the basement.

Fuck .

Way to go, creepy old guy.

Way to go.